


Find A Way

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Cave in, I wanted to write a scene, M/M, just to stretch into these characters, might continue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: Michael is trapped and this time he needs Alex to go away.





	Find A Way

Michael had two moments of complete quiet before his body woke up in pain and darkness. The black was so thick it felt like a blanket: a weight settled against him. He had a breath of unreasonable overwhelming panic, feeling an unadulterated primal fear crawl up the back of his neck and tense coldly in the arches of his feet and the palms of his hands. It clawed at his heartbeat, pressing sharp fingers into his lungs and higher to break out of him in a wildly animal noise, soft and little broken before he could rein it in and concentrate.

“Alex!” His voice was too soft, barely a whisper that choked out of him even as his stomach rolled. He managed to twist, dry heaving in the darkness. He tasted blood and dust, felt the grit of it on his teeth. He could hear the groaning shift of rock on rock under the over loud sound of his heart and the rasping noise of his own breath. His body was somewhere in the dark, oddly disconnected when he couldn’t see himself, see the edges of his own skin. The ache in his hand grounded him as it seized up, pain sharp and so familiar. “Alex!”

It echoed close and tight this time, cut short by the size of the space around him. Michael closed his eyes, taking a breath to find something calm in his center and patted along his body to find his hips, sliding into his back pocket for his phone. The swallowed sob of relief broke into the space when it lit up- blue and dim from the light of a cracked screen. He thumbed up, leaving a black smear on the screen and suddenly becoming aware that he was bleeding, hands slick and cooling. The phone shook and slipped out of his fingers, dropping against his side and clattering, light shifting wildly until it settled face down just out of hands reach. He groaned, reaching out with his mind- the ache of it like stretching a pulled muscle.

Jesse Manes had followed them.

Michael had a breath of white fear, sparking electric down his spine at the memory. “ALEX!” He reached harder, gagging as the phone smacked against his palm and trying to roll onto his side as he fumbled to flick on the flashlight.

I want to know you, Guerin. 

They’d come to the cave. They’d walked, shoulder to shoulder through the narrow turns, and Michael had tried to ignore the way their fingers would brush sometimes if he twisted too quickly to slide around a sharp sandstone corner. Alex had shrugged out of his backpack, letting it dangle between them like a barrier and Michael just clenched his jaw, wet his lips, and kept moving. They were coming to collect the pods. There were no more secrets between them. Nothing to stop them.

But they were walking quietly through the tunnels, silence stretching between them with the things they just didn’t have the right words for. Michael had to stop the mean smile that threatened to smear over his face when he realized that he was in front and for once Alex was following him.

Stuck in the dark with just the glow of his phone he remembers the way Alex’s eyes had gone a little wide, mouth dropped open and soft at the glow of the pods. He remembers the abortive way he’d reached to touch them and swallowed hard. He knew how it felt to be afraid to touch something beautiful. “Geurin?”

“Hatched,” Michael had replied, shrugging large before shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, feeling the cut of his belt against his back as he tilted his head. “Makes the chicken versus egg conversation a hell of a lot more interesting.”

Alex had glanced away, mouth quirking in a small smile before dropping his bag to kneel next to the glowing pods. “The way you explained it, I didn’t think they’d still be intact.”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve ever been very good at understanding each other.” He regretted the words immediately when Alex’s face closed off with a quick flick of brow. “Alex-”

“Do they move?” Alex’s voice was deeper, plain and without inflection. Michael threw a look at the ceiling of the cave, tracing the scratched carvings of the beacon he’d lazily doodled when he’d made it back to Roswell.

“Yeah,” he answered, moving to set a hand on the soft curve of the shell. “They were moved here at some point.” He looked at the way the glow swirled and pressed against the shell like an animal pressing for comfort, rippling out in a golden echo. Alex nodded, unpacking some of the tools he’d brought with him and tilting his head.

“Did we leave the furniture movers-”

“Back of my truck.”

Alex nodded and pushed to his feet, absently pressing a hand to Michael’s forearm for balance as he stood. He brushed off his knees and nodded, eyes glancing off of Michael’s as he turned and started back for the truck. “I’ll grab it.”

“Are you sure? I could-”

“I’m not an invalid, Guerin.”

“That’s not what I was-”

Alex paused at the mouth of the larger space, before just nodding and spreading his fingers along the wall as he walked out of sight.

Michael had been about to say something else when the world had exploded in white and noise, heat and stone.

Jesse Manes had found them.

Michael gave himself three breaths to fully panic, eyes watering and tears racing over his temples into his hair before he blew out a long slow breath and focused. He had his phone. He had his powers. He was injured and a little foggy, but he could hear his own voice in his head. He could move, unaware in the dim light of just how injured he was, but used to an ever present lingering pain. He nodded a few times, noises low and animal slipping out of him as he wrestled up to sitting and turned his flashlight out to inspect the space he was in. The rocks had crashed and caught on one of the pods, cracked and leaking the gas into the space- Michael ignored the sudden shocking sorrow that flooded him at the sight and turned to where the opening had been. “ALEX!” His throat hurt at the strength of his scream, pulling himself up and reaching to shift the rocks- the whole slide shifting ominously before he stopped. It felt like tearing his brain in half and he dry heaved again, falling onto all fours to pant in the dirt.

He tried again, wretching as the pain spiked violet and lightning strobed behind his eyes. Again. Again. Again. Again-

His phone vibrated under his palm.

“Fucking stupid,” he breathed as he turned it over and read the number flashing on the cracked screen. He’d deleted Alex’s contact seven weeks ago, tired of staring at the name in his contact list, tired of the hope that bubbled in his chest every time a text came in. Michael was exhausted and he deleted the contact but he couldn’t forget the number he’d had memorized since high school. It took two tries to answer, hands shaking and going tacky with drying blood. “Alex!”

“Michael! Oh my god, Michael,” Alex sounded wrecked, but he was *alive*. Michael choked around a happy noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

“I’m bleeding,” he heard himself say, stupid with relief and letting himself sag fully into his body. “Alex?”

“Michael, don’t stop talking,” Alex sounded winded, like he was running before a blast of static cut through what he said next and Michael just closed his eyes. He could feel his fingers going cold and he nodded once. 

“We were never really good at talking, Alex,” he said, smile going fond as he managed to get a shoulder into the dirt and roll onto his back to pant at the dome of rock.

“Guerin,” Alex sounded livid and Michael couldn’t help the way his heart twisted up and knocked him stupid. “I swear to God that if you start a fight right now I will personally-”

“Threatening me with a good time, Private?”

“Fucking christ,” Alex muttered, voice soft. “Only you would flirt right now.”

“I might not get the chance again?”

“Shut up. Don’t say shit like that.”

“You just told me to keep talking.”

“Okay, I did, but not about that.” There was a tapping sound and Michael closed his eyes.

“I think I’m going to pass out.”

“No, Michael, stay with me.”

“I never leave, Alex. I couldn’t.” He heard the way his own voice sounded wounded and it hurt more than the way his side was starting to throb sharply in time with his heartbeat. “I had to be where you found me again. That’s what they say to do when you’re lost. Just stay put and wait.’ he wet his lips. “So, I waited.”

There was a moment of silence and Michael turned his head away, blowing out a breath as the tapping sound resumed. “Michael,” Alex started, that stubborn baritone going shaky and Michael couldn’t handle this right now.

“Get Max,” he said finally. “You’ll need him.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me. We’re in this together- for better or worse.” Alex grunted in time with the noise and Michael could see it then, the way Alex had the phone tucked against his shoulder, jaw squared and black eyes determined. He could see the flex of his shoulders, the strength in his hands, and the fluid way he moved. He was always so easy to watch. “I’m not giving up that easily!”

“Alex,” he let his voice drop to a whisper. “I’m bleeding. I’m pretty sure it’s bad because I can’t feel my fingers right now and as much as I want to just listen to you breath- which I do, a lot, like all the time,” he huffed a breath, shaking his head. “I’m going to need more help.”

“You better pick up when I call back.” He could imagine the way Alex was gritting it out through his teeth.

“For better or worse?” Michael muttered, coughing and licking away a fleck of blood. “I’m not going anywhere, you dramatic ass overgrown emo kid.”

“Love you too, you criminally negligent hobo.”

Michael’s hand spasmed and he blinked into the dark as the line went dead. He had a moment of relief, sweet and pure before he passed out, slipping from one dark to something blacker.

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, I'm on [Tumblr ](http://irolltwenties.tumblr.com/) if you want to flail with me. Cause that would be rad.


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